I thought it was blow down in summer, suck up in winter.
I had an energy audit guy come over today and he said the opposite - blow down in winter, suck up in summer. His argument, the ceiling is warmer, so in winter you want to blow that warmer air down onto you, and in summer, you want to suck up the cooler air.
Which is correct?
what is correct is what you like best. Personally, i run mine down all year around. A lot depends on furniture placement also. It's all a matter of comfort. Do what feels good to you. Either way stirs the air by the ceiling and that's the main goal.
The other aspect I should mention is I'm referring primarily to two rooms where the ceilings are vaulted at a pitch with the roof, and the fan hangs from a long pole at the peak so that it is about 9 ft above the floor, and is the strategy different for these than for fans right in the ceiling of a typical bedroom.
*I agree with Steve. Either way the room air gets mixed so that all of the hot air is not on the ceiling and all of the cool air is not sitting on the floor. If you want a breeze to feel cool have it blow down. If you don't want to feel a breeze have it blow up.
I have installed many ceiling fans for customers. Some fan manufacturers recommend blowing down in summer and others recommend blowing up for summer. I just tell my customers to go with whatever feels good to them.
I have a vaulted ceiling with an adjacent loft. My ceiling fan blows down all year round to keep the loft from getting too warm.
It may make sense in the winter to stir up the air but in summer, when the AC is on, leave that hot air up in the ceiling and not down where you are sitting. Turn the fan off.
Here's what ceilingfan.org has to say, which is the way I understood it:
Counter Clockwise (down) in the summer so that you experience some "wind chill" effect, Clockwise (up) in the winter to move the warm air down along the walls so that you *don't* experience the wind chill. Slow speed is important in the winter to keep the wind chill at a minimum.
Some of this depends on where the person is located for the most time in relation to the air flow and how far from the ceiling the fan is.
Of course, as mentioned in the article, you might not want downward air movement over a table while you're eating or doing paperwork, so there are caveats.
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